Clouds
by AtheneMiranda
Summary: Johnny hasn't quite felt the same since he last saw Norrin Radd...


**Disclaimer**: Marvel owns the F4 universe - I'm just taking a stroll here.

**Warnings** for mild movieverse spoilage, for the fact that I've read very little of the comics, and for slash.

_'but there's got to be more to death than surfing all the time.'_ - 'Alleluia', Dar Williams

I kinda wish I remembered her name. It's not _my_ fault I forgot it - I was still drunk when she told me it - but if I haven't worked it out by the time she wakes up this is going to get embarrassing. Michelle or Shelley or Kelly or something. I shouldn't've got drunk enough to ask her back here, I guess - at least if I was at her place I could sneak around til I found it written down somewhere, or walk out now and send a few roses round later, like I cared but was too cool to care. But no, stupid Johnny had to ask her back to the Baxter Building. Well, if Kelly or Ellen or whoever goes crying to the tabloids, I guess I'll play at too cool to care. I bet there's a one-liner in there, but I'll leave it to the subeditors to find it.

I don't feel cool - don't feel anything, really, just a bit of throbbing in the head, and maybe in other places too... I'd hop out the window, let the clouds soothe it off, but - not now. Maybe I could leave it til noon or so tomorrow, til there's bright sunlight on me and a crowd below to cheer, but I'm getting used to this groove, and if I go play 4am comet I'm going to regret it more than I regret forgetting Ellen or Della or Bella's name.

I can't even get back to sleep. Whoever she is, she snores when she's drunk. Definitely not a keeper.

I drum my fingers on the windowsill, not really thinking of anything, just looking out at my natural territory. Not the city, not the neat outline of grid-squares and the headlamps trundling on, even at this hour, in antlike monotony - that's barely worth a glance. I'm eying the sky. It's roiling, moonlight diffused by fast-changing clouds - I want to open it, just a crack, just to feel the breeze, tell if there's rain coming tomorrow, but if I did I so wouldn't stop there. A plane coasts past overhead, curving round towards La Guardia - once upon a time I would've jumped right outside and chased it, given a wave to all the happy passengers, but I know that wouldn't do it for me.

The Torch is not grounded. I am not done with flying, not scared of goddamn dark; the flame has not, so not, gone out. I just don't like the weather out there, that's all. Not that I've not had good times up in thunderheads before now, playing up my surname and being taken for St Elmo - it's just that looking at it brings back memories. Not even bad memories - hell of a night if ever there was one, but...

I raise the window sash an inch, and the wind howls in like Sue in a bad mood. I rummage on the floor til I find my jumpsuit - underneath a dark red dress I almost, kinda, remember seeing Bella or Belinda or Linda wearing on a dancefloor last night. Wind tickles my hair as I pull the suit on, and I inhale deeply, glancing at the massing clouds again. It's not like they look like Galactus at all - nothing else in the world looks like a cloud that's about to eat your planet. I should get out there just to show I still can. It's not like I don't want to, I just...

I'd just have to wonder, if I did. I guess he's, what, dead? I don't want to say something like Norrin could _die_ - he's so far out of my stratosphere that I do not want to contemplate his mortality. If he can be dead, then what am I, a mayfly? I guess it doesn't matter anyway. Not like I'm going to see him again either way, no matter how hard I look for -

- It's just another plane, higher up than the last one. Yeah, I shouldn't be night-flying, not when my eyes are chasing every moving silver light on reflex. I'll wind up spread across some skyscraper so thin Reed would be impressed. I saw a falling star two nights ago. I didn't make a wish. I need to stop looking for him. He's not there, and he doesn't want me anyway. He pushed me off his board. Twice. And he probably fancies my sister anyway - they always do. Even if he didn't it's not like we could - hey, there was a girl in his life anyway. There's a girl in my life too. She's called Linda or Cindy or Sidney or something (no, I think I would've remembered if she was called Sidney) and she's shivering a bit in my bed. I fold the blanket in two over her, and tug it up over her sweet blonde head. Well, I think it's blonde - it's a bit dark in here, and I don't want disturb her by turning the lights on...

It used to be enough. Pretty girls, big bucks and the sky - I thought I had everything I wanted. I thought I was alone up here, on top of the world - I never guessed there could be someone else up here. Someone to fly with. Someone who could carry me higher... Someone with eyes more interesting than Scylla's entire body. (I am clutching at the ragged, half-chewed ends of plastic milkshake straws now. Elsa? Stella?) Someone who showed me that even I have limits - I can do the impossible, the spectacular, the fantastic, but I can't find Norrin. I can't bring him back here. And I can't forget about him. I can't even work out what the hell to do about it either. I can't pretend I never knew him, but I can't stay out of the sky either -

The clouds have drifted and taken the moon away with them - there's a million stars out there, and he could be any one of them. It's not like I'm going to catch cold out there - I push the window open, and jump out.


End file.
